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Healing degraded land

By Debra Khumalo

Much of Swaziland’s countryside is being
destroyed by land degradation largely as a result of soil erosion. Beautiful landscapes
are now scarred with deep lesions mostly as a result of poor land use resulting
in top soil loss. With the help of the Lower
Usuthu Sustainable Land Management Project (LUSLM), funded by the
International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Global
Environment Facility (GEF), the
Chiefdom of Luhlanyeni in the Lubombo region has taken the initiative to
rehabilitate 16 hectares (on this site, 204 hectares altogether) of heavily
degraded land and return that property to productive use.

The gulley’s in the Lubombo region,
East Swaziland are huge, wide and deep. During the past three years they became
a serious concern as they now threaten approximately 153 homesteads.

As the gulley lies in the upper areas
of Lubovane Dam, it’s also poses a significant threat on the lifespan of the dam. In no time at all, this very expensive dam
will be ruined by siltation, as top soil flows into rivers of mud and fills the
dam. The fertility of agricultural land in the areas as well as the quality of
grazing land has diminished to almost desert conditions.

The community faced two options -flee,
or face the problem. They chose to face the challenge and began efforts to
rehabilitate the land. Initial attempts to rehabilitate the land were
unsuccessful due to lack of appropriate materials and skills, among other
reasons.

In 2010 Conserve Swaziland, a local
NGO, assisted the community to apply for funding from the National Environment
Fund, under the custodianship of Swaziland Environmental Authority (SEA). The
funds enabled the community to plant fruit trees and fence off the degraded
area, avoiding further degradation.

Further assistance was solicited from
the Ministry of Agriculture’s Land Development Section, which was tasked with
providing gabion cages to be erected on the degraded land. Gabion cages are a
cage, box or cylinder filled with rocks, concrete or sometimes soils and have
varying applications in civil engineering and erosion control.

In the Luhlanyeni Chiefdom, one of the
stakeholders’ representatives, Msutfu Fakudze of Conserve Swaziland praises the
communities initiative, saying, “The community started the project without any
assistance. Our organization became involved at the invitation of the Ministry
of Agriculture, which asked for our technical expertise.”

Plants with good rooting systems are
especially useful in rebuilding the land. Drought tolerant crops and edible
plants, especially leguminous crops such as sweet potatoes, potatoes and
cassava that are drought tolerant are key to improving soil cover and assisting
in soil improvement.

Besides the technical know-how, the
stakeholders have also trained the community in social cohesion, group
dynamics, conflict management, sustainable management of shared natural
resources and conservation agriculture.
They have also taught the community ways of protecting top soil, such as; planting
useful fruit trees and placing gabion cages. They have also showed them how to
use mulch, compost and crop rotation to improve soil health, increase crop
yields and resistance to pests and diseases.

Sihlangwini Community

Since the project started, the Sihlangwini
community, which is within the Luhlanyeni Chiefdom, has increased its
production from its once degraded land. Crops include a variety of legumes,
sweet potatoes and fruit trees. They have also started hay bailing initiatives
to harvest the now abundant grass to feed livestock during winter.

Most of the crops produce from the
area are now sold in the local communities and markets. This year, the
community has been able to produce about 50 Kg of sweet potatoes and another 50
Kg of both ground nuts and peanuts per week.

“We are now food secure,” says Nomsa
Tfwala, a member of the Sihlangwini community. “Our community now grows enough
crops, fruits and vegetables for our needs. What is excess we sell. We started
by rehabilitating about 16 ha of heavily
degraded land which has been returned to agriculture to produce crops for both commercial and subsistence
purposes , and have now covered about 200 ha.

The visible improvement of the
Sihlangwini area has inspired neighboring communities like Sithobelweni to
follow suit..

LUSIP-GEF National Project Manager,
Lynn Kota estimates that between 15 to 20 percent of arable land in Swaziland
is no longer useful, and the incidence of farming land being abandoned is
increasing.

“This is an
initiative that is already being replicated in other communities. A similar
initiative has been started at Gucuka. Here the land is beginning to heal
and 300 fruit trees have been planted.”